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The Mad Hatter is a character from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. He is known for his absurd headgear and peculiar behavior, and is based on a real-life person. His name comes from the harmful chemicals used in hat manufacturing that caused brain damage.
The Mad Hatter is a character who appears in Lewis Carroll’s book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and also in the subsequent book, Through the Looking Glass. Like the Cheshire Cat, another famous Carroll character, he is so distinctive that many people recognize him and his absurd headgear outside the context of Alice’s world. As a result, he occasionally appears in popular culture.
This character is puzzling and enigmatic and, as the name suggests, appears to be insane. Certainly his behavior is peculiar, and the Cheshire Cat actually specifically warns Alice that the character is insane. However, in the books, he is never directly referred to as the Mad Hatter, although he is sometimes known as “The Hatter”.
Alice meets the Mad Hatter for the first time at a singular tea party. Her calling is easily identified by her large, ornate hat, which still carries a price tag. The Hatter and the March Hare have indeed been having the same tea party for a long time, ever since the Queen of Hearts claimed the Mad Hatter was killing time by singing particularly badly in a public performance. Originally sentenced to death, he escaped, but decided that time had indeed stopped, condemning him to an endless tea party.
At the tea party, the guests are constantly switching seats and exchanging snippets of conversation, peculiar verses and strange riddles such as “how does a raven like a desk?” When the Mad Hatter later reappears to Alice, the Queen threatens him with beheading after recognizing him, but he escapes to live again in Through the Looking Glass. However, he doesn’t sidestep his legal woes, as he finds himself convicted of a crime he hasn’t yet committed.
Like some of Carroll’s other characters, the Mad Hatter is likely based on a real-life person. Some people believe the character is a fiction of Theophilus Carter, an eccentric who would have been known to Lewis Carroll.
The Mad Hatter’s name is a reference to a common slang term, “mad as a hatter.” The origins of this term appear to be in the harmful chemicals many hatters used in their trade to treat materials such as felt and leather. These chemicals would be inhaled constantly in hat manufacturing shops, causing brain damage that could result in a variety of psychological symptoms.
